d other towns of the East coast, are provided from
Yorkshire, Lancashire, &c., by way of the Great Northern and Great
Eastern Joint line from Doncaster and Lincoln to March.

(2) Through connexions between the systems of the South-Eastern &
Chatham and the Great Western companies are provided via Reading.

(3) Through connexions between the systems of the Great Central and
the Great Western companies are provided by the line connecting
Woodford and Banbury.

(4) Through connexions between the Midland and the South-Western
systems are provided (a) by the Midland and South-Western Junction
line connecting Cheltenham on the north-and-west line of the Midland
with Andover Junction on the South-Western line; and (b) by the
Somerset & Dorset line, connecting the same lines between Bath,
Templecombe and Bournemouth.

(5) The line from Shrewsbury to Craven Arms and Hereford, giving
connexion between the north and the south-west, and Wales, is worked
by the North-Western and Great Western companies.

Canals and rivers.

_Inland Navigation._--The English system of inland navigation is
confined principally to the following districts: South Lancashire, the
West Riding of Yorkshire, the Midlands, especially about Birmingham,
the Fen district and the Thames basin (especially the lower part). All
these districts are interconnected. The condition of inland
navigation, as a whole, is not satisfactory. The Fossdyke in
Lincolnshire, connecting the river Trent at Torksey with the Witham
near Lincoln, and now belonging to the Great Northern and Great
Eastern joint railways, is usually indicated as the earliest extant
canal in England, inasmuch as it was constructed by the Romans for the
purpose of drainage or water-supply, and must have been used for
navigation at an early period. But the history of canal-building in
England is usually dated from about 1760, and from the construction,
at the instance of Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, of the Bridgewater
canal in South Lancashire, now belonging to the Manchester Ship Canal
Company. The activity in canal-building which prevailed during the
later years of the 18th century was, in a measure, an earlier
counterpart of the first period of railway development, which,
proceeding subsequently along systematized lines not applied to
canal-construction, and providing obvious advantages in respect of
speed, caused rail